


Twilight's Excursion

by AppleSoda



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, First Dates, Fluff, Friendship/Love, this is between kh com and kh2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-07 17:28:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18877849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AppleSoda/pseuds/AppleSoda
Summary: Somewhere inside Castle Oblivion is a powerful Witch that DiZ has asked Riku to find. But when he locates her, she’s hesitant to go. So Riku tries another way.





	Twilight's Excursion

“The Castle stands empty once more,” DiZ looked upon the path in, now unobscured by the schemes of the Organization’s ranks that had once inhabited it. Before him was Riku, wearing a pilfered coat, a blindfold, and a rueful expression.

 

“But there’s still someone in there you need me to find? He asked. Mickey had set off to the tower of Yen Sid, frantic about another Keyblade wielder that had been lost, looking shaken all the while. 

 

“Correct,” answered the masked man. “The Witch, Namine. She will be vital to any plans concerning Sora.”

 

“The last time I left her, she was looking after him already,” said Riku, knowing that the girl with the gentle disposition hadn’t been happy, exactly, with what she had been asked to do. He had left her with a good deal of questions that remained on his mind. The question that came next, of course, was how DiZ expected him to follow the orders he had just issued.

 

“The memories of Roxas have become troublesome to Sora’s recovery. We will need her work for that to be completed immediately under my watch.”

 

Nothing DiZ said had been unreasonable, as far as the plans they needed to make were concerned. Yet, as Riku set into the castle once more to make his request, he knew that the task in asking a favor of her carried with it questions he had to face, as well.

 

Once, Riku would have followed the directions to the letter, glassy-eyed and senses dulled by disappointment that his journey hadn’t gone as hoped. Now, he had found himself in a far more uncertain place, just resurfacing from a place of uncontrollable darkness, eyes bound and fumbling towards a new resolve.

 

= =

 

Namine’s expression was unreadable as she stared into the pod. Her sketchpad leaned on the edge of her lap, as if she was stuck on a problem or moving slowly through a bout of artist’s block. As his footsteps approached, she looked up, and he saw around the edges of the blindfold that her features flinched away for a moment.

 

“Hello, Riku,” she said, after a moment’s notice. “Do you have business here?”

 

“I….” He was never a very good liar, when the occasion really called for it. “I wanted to see how Sora was doing.” There. That wasn’t a lie at all, and it placed him in the room where he needed to be.

 

“When we last spoke, I believe I had explained that it would take some time,” her voice was gentle, but already it asked questions of him.Meanwhle, Riku’s attention had drifted to new drawings pinned onto the walls. This collection hadn’t been of him, Sora, Kairi or any of his best friend’s adventures. None of them were carefully curated to give off the impression of a witch held captive.

 

“This is very…” Riku searched for a better word as he turned the artwork around to get a better look at it from other angles.

 

“…elaborate.” On the sketchpad, she had drawn a circle of Dusks carrying a tied-up Marluxia, the Castle’s Former Lord, on their way to what appeared to be the crayon reconstruction of a guillotine with a razor-sharp blade.

 

“Well, you know…It’s kind of….”She searched for a word that was acceptable to provide as an answer“…. boring in here.” Namine rubbed the side of her elbow sheepishly. Pointedly, she mentioned nothing about the subject matter of the drawing. “You start to imagine things after a while.”

 

DiZ had been very exact with his instructions. To find the Nobody girl and bring her to him and start work immediately. And in truth, the self-interested side of him wanted the immediate assurance that Sora’s restored memories would bring back.

 

The costs of being alone, though, was something that was impossible for Riku to write off. Not when he had felt the pain of it. Neither was he able to ignore the fact that simply taking someone to fulfill a plan didn’t do anyone any good. That, Riku had learned the hard way.

 

“I’ve been working with DiZ to help Sora. And he wants to try to ask you to work on someone else’s memory.”

 

Namine, who had helped him through finding what needed to be done with the darkness inside of him, deserved the truth. As she listened, he noticed the distrust that had surrounded her flicker briefly. Everything from the ay she sat to the way that her face fell at the idea of manipulating more memories suggested a reluctance to depart right away.

 

“My powers have had devastating consequences when I’ve used them without thinking,” she looked down at her hands. “How do I know they won’t simply be manipulated to hurt someone again? I’ve been so careful to fix what I’ve done to Sora…If something goes wrong with the memories of his Nobody, then he may not wake up properly.” 

 

Whatever trust they had built between them, she had yet to find for the mysterious masked man that now ordered Mickey and him about on srange, often unexplainable errands. It was as if DiZ, Mickey, and him had charged past her without asking what she knew of the memory restoration process.

 

Riku looked at the drawings once more, which glowed with an inner anger at the lonely, stubborn and harsh environment that Namine had called home, that had trapped Sora, and had tested him within an inch of his life. All this time, she had been trapped there, but also protected by the predictability of its walls.

 

What if she had an opportunity to leave for somewhere she’d yearned for?

 

The question came to him suddenly, and slowed down the quiet conundrum that Riku had been thinking over. Namine had taken the form of Kairi to help her, and had gone from captive to helper and ally. But there was more to someone thatn what they could do for others. But other than that, he hadn’t known anything about her.

 

“Is there anywhere you’ve always wanted to go?” Riku found himself asking. “We don’t have to talk about it here, if you want.” The three words came to mind easily, but meant all the difference.

 

Namine thought about it for a moment, then nodded. She slid a card across the table, and looked a him expectedly.

 

“My terms,” she answered. “Please let me know, and I can check on Sora and depart with you.”

 

= =

 

“So, if the Organization stuck you anywhere but here…hypothetically speaking, where’d you want to go?”

 

It was a rare occasion where Larxene was acting chatty as opposed to bored, angry, or close to violence. Namine knew she had to tread carefully, though, because you never really wanted to play fast and loose with the temperament of someone that threw knives rapidly, often, and despised nearly everything.

 

“Where would you want to go?” She asked, pointedly not looking up from her sketchpad. If she worked, it provided an excuse not to.

 

“Agrabah, probably,” shrugged the older woman, picking at the underside of her nails delicately with one of her daggers. “It’s unbearably hot, but there’s this cave that appears at night that I went on a mission in. Good pickings on loot. No people to talk to.” She checked off invisible boxes one by one, grinning.

 

Namine had always had a fondness for Twilight Town. Out of all the Worlds that Marluxia had ordered her to recreate for Sora to explore, she had spent the most time putting it together. Its homey and relaxed atmosphere was somewhere that she turned to whenever things appeared impossible. In a way, she reached for it in her imagination when nothing seemed right. For a while, it was a secret of hers, tucked away from work or anything she worried about. Just that once, Namine let her guard down and told the truth. 

 

“Really?” Larxene’s laughter was as clear and as sharp as glass shards . “All the buildings there look like they’ve rusted over. Who’d ever want to go to that dump? I mean, besides weirdos like Roxas and whats-her-name…”

 

The only response Namine had, as with all interactions with Larxene, was to smile placidly and make a noise that acknowledged the invalidity of her choice.

 

If Riku was in the mood to work off whatever source of guilt he had, then she was all too happy to take advantage of an opportunity to properly leave the castle. But as she watched him hold up the card, she relaxed as his expression was one of wistfulness.

 

“It looks…peaceful here.” He had answered. And her grip on her sketchbook loosened, just a little.

 

= =

 

“Why was that boy yelling ‘Isn’t it Romantic’ when he was, uh,” Namine mimed a downward clubbing motion with some exaggeration, “bludgeoning that other boy with a bat?” They had perched on a flat benche at the far edge of the sandlot. It was mid-afternoon, and even with Riku’s blindfold, they hadn’t been noticed by any of the other people running about, cheering on Struggle Matches, or relaxing.

 

But it had bothered Namine a little that she had gotten something wrong.“If that’s what I was supposed to mimic with the Organization, I can’t help but think I didn’t do a very good job at fooling Sora.”

 

“No, that’s….” Riku trailed off. “I have no explanation for what he was saying. But typically, that’s not how it works.”

 

“Really? You seem quite sure of yourself.” Namine smiled. At that, Riku turned away, unexpectedly interested in something off in the distance as he felt heat creep up the side of his neck.

 

For someone so serious, he got flustered quiet easily at certain topics. That, like the occasional freehand drawing, was fun to try for the sake of trying something new. 

 

“Anyways,” Riku cleared his throat. “See that taller guy?”

 

“The ‘Romantic’ comment one,” Namine nodded.

 

“Yeah, whatever his name is. He’s going to lose this round.”

 

“To…” Namine looked over at the board. “Hayner? This—” She peered over again. “Seifer guy looks pretty confident. And he’s taller. ”

 

“Confidence isn’t everything.” Riku shook his head. “Hayner’s gotten a strategy. I don’t know if he came up with it himself, but as long as he’s figured out what Seifer can do, he can claw his way back.”

 

And sure enough, he was proven wrong. In minutes, Hayner was flattened soundly, and let loose a colorful string of words as he shook his fist and retreated off to commiserate with the rest of his friends.

 

She exchanged a wary look with Riku, who resignedly put his head in his hands. Still, as he looked towards her, Namine’s face was shining with excitement, and she was already drawing with her crayons and paper. This time, it didn’t look like any other occasion when she had been putting this memory in place or sorting that recollection out.

 

She was creating for herself, and the sight of it stirred something warm, precious and new in his heart.

 

= =

 

DiZ had loved Twilight Town, too, for the sea-salt ice cream that a clever shop had made and sold there. So difficult was it to replicate that several times, Riku and Mickey had brought back a stick or two for the enigmatic man. That was something Riku remembered as he watched Namine fumble with the small pouch of munny he had lent her for two pops, and gestured towards Sunset Terrace.

 

“That’s weird,” he had said. “There’s a train leaving that’s different than the others.” From atop the hill, they could see the contours and valleys of the town below, and the routes of where trams, trolleys and trains leaving the station were slowly journeying towards. Night was about to fall in the town where memory had become reality, and the day had passed much more quickly than she’d liked.

 

“It looks like a hat a wizard would wear,” Namine pointed towards the cone-shaped roof of the train. “Perhaps it’s taking an apprentice off to take a test, or an adventurer to find something new.” It was something she had made up, and sure enough, the train vanished into what looked like a track made of stars, disappearing into the misty dusk. More likely than not, it disappeared from the world altogether. Such things weren’t impossible, given that the Organization and people like Sora were able to do it easily.

 

Riku had opened a portal, just like a Nobody could, and the questions that lay ahead for him didn’t seem easy. An ordinary person couldn’t travel in the lanes between easily. For him to gain the ability must have meant that he had paid the costs in some way, and some form.

 

And yet, his heart remained kind. More than kind— it almost seemed as if he had come to care for her.

 

“Could I take a look at your eyes?” She asked, before she really knew what to do with the question.

 

“You’ve seen them before, haven’t you?” Somehow, the words were ones he regretted the instant they were spoken.

 

The response gave Namine some pause.

 

“I have,” she replied. “I’ve seen them dozens of times on the other you while he was lied to.” At that, her mouth twisted with unease. “I”ve seen them on _you_ when we were able to finally meet.” He had been brave then, refusing to sleep away the pain and taking a more difficult path.

 

“However,” Namine added, “I haven’t seen what your eyes were like today.” There was a wavering in her voice and through the blindfold, he could see that there was something that he could swear was emotion there. Despite everything DiZ had insisted was true, he wanted nothing more, in that instant, for the words and the feelings behind them to be true.

 

“…Okay.”

 

Namine felt the smooth contour of his face as she parted the blindfold over his right eye ever-so-slightly. At the sight of it, she saw that it widened in vulnerability, and of a nervousness that she couldn’t quite trace back to the origins. They were also the expression of someone Namine wanted to protect, despite everything.

 

Left alone with DiZ, who seemed reckless despite his immense intellect, was something she could not do. Letting Riku go and not seeing him again seemed to hurt even more.

 

Traces of heat remained on her fingers as she set the blindfold back into place, and she could still feel his gaze on her. Even though memory had been a domain she was certain she could control from creation to modification to erasure, Namine was certain that this strange, lightheaded nervousness was a memory she couldn’t change. At least not for herself.

 

“I’ll go with you,” she said, thinking of wherever the path took Riku next. Namine was seldom wrong when she reached for something good, in the few times that such opportunities presented themselves. And even if her heart wasn’t there, whatever was in its place had been happy.

 

“Thanks, Namine.” Those words from Riku, coincidental in that they had been promised to her,were a treasure she wouldn’t exchange for anything.

**Author's Note:**

> The most interesting part of writing this was figuring out a scenario where Namine, who is generally not considered a smooth operator, is 100% a smooth operator


End file.
